NYC Pride's New Executive Director on Responding to Challenges to LGBTQIA+ Fundraising

NYC Pride, the organization most notable for producing The New York City Pride March in June, has a new executive director. Im Lynde talks about the significance of Pride for him, what’s in store for 2026, and how they’re responding to the significant challenges facing DEI projects and the LGBTQIA+ community. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Get Connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven Light FM.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Thanks for listening to Get Connected. NYC Pride, the organization
most notable for producing the New York City Pride March
in June, has a new executive director and for our
final Get Connected of twenty twenty five, we meet MLND
and look forward to what's in store for Pride twenty
twenty six in New York. Thank you for being here, Mlind, Thanks.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
So much for having me and New York City Pride.
It's such an honor.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
The website is Nycpride dot org. For those that may
have never been to New York City Pride or unfamiliar
with the organization, just let's talk about what the organization
does and what's the work of NYC Pride.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
NYC Pride is a five oh one C three nonprofit
that produces the official lgbtqiaplus Pride events in New York City.
We were founded in nineteen eighty four, evolving from the
Christopher Street Liberation Day Committee that organized the very first
New York City Pride March almost fifty seven years ago

(01:12):
in nineteen seventy. That March in nineteen seventy launched a
global movement of Pride marches around the US and around
the world. New York City Pride is the largest in
the US, with more than two and a half million
spectators and participants. We're a small team of only nine
full time staff members, and our work is to create

(01:35):
safe spaces year round and celebrate our community and our allies,
which is needed now more than ever because of the
political climate.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
How do you come to this role? Talk a little
bit about yourself and your story to get here.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Yeah. So, I've been a nonprofit for twenty four years,
mostly in direct social services, helping sustain programs and services
and fundraising for those previous organizations. The areas that I've
worked in include providing free treatment for substance use disorders
for LGBTQ plus patients who couldn't afford treatment, housing for

(02:10):
domestic violence survivors and homeless families, providing free legal counsel
for LGBTQ plus asylum seekers, HIVAS healthcare, and rare illnesses.
I just joined New York City Prize team as the
executive director last month, and my role essentially is just
to ensure that New York City Pride will continue and

(02:34):
thrive for many more years to come for the younger
queer generation who should experience pride, who's never done it before.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
This is a huge organization and a big role. You know,
what is it about pride when you think about growing up?
What do those events mean to you?

Speaker 3 (02:51):
Oh? Well, I will never forget participating in my very
first Pride and this was much later in life, towo
thousand and one, summer of two thousand and one here
in New York City, and I will never ever forget
how that made me feel. It made me become more
of my authentic self, to be more confident, and that

(03:14):
essentially has basically paved the way for me to be
confident and be okay in my career and my love
life and my relationships with my family after I had
learned to accept myself. And that only came out after
I attended my very first New York City probably when
I saw a two and a half milliate three million
people there who were just like me, and also our

(03:36):
allies as well. Let's not forget our allies who are
also there to support queer people, younger queer people like myself.

Speaker 2 (03:43):
You're also the first Asian American to helm this group.
What does that mean to you?

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, no pressure at all. I mean, you know, I
didn't choose to be Asian, I didn't choose to be queer.
And I think that the representation is very important, especially
in the Asian American communities where being out and being

(04:12):
gay or lesbian or trans is usually not accepted as
accepting as in all other cultures. There's lots of pressures
to being AAPI. So I'm very fortunate to have family
that were accepting of me and you know, wanted me
to go the more traditional route of academics and medicine

(04:38):
and law, and I got into nonprofit twenty four years ago.
My first salary twenty four years ago was twenty eight
thousand dollars a year, and I thought that was a lot,
and they didn't really understand why it got into nonprofit.
So they understand now that I am probably one of
the happiest and least dramatic people with my family, so

(05:03):
they are very supportive.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
We're speaking with em Lynd, the new executive director of
NYC Pride. The organization does a lot of work, including
putting together the Big Pride March in June. Nycpride dot
org for more details. We're going to talk about what's
coming up this year. You're listening to get connected on
one of six point seven Light FM. But what does
NYC Pride do throughout the year.

Speaker 3 (05:26):
Yeah, so we actually have quite a few things happening
throughout the year other than June as well. So our
main party is just to create safe spaces for the community,
especially the younger queer community, to unite, to celebrate and
build camaraderie amongst each other. Each month, we actually have hosts.
We host meetups at our office that has tailored programming.

(05:49):
If it's not held at our office, it's usually at
another place nearby in the West Village. We bring our
partners together as well. Twice a year. It's for our
corporate Summer as we call it. That's where we actually
share insights on how to promote LGBTQ plus inclusion in
the workplace. We also host family movie nights with our

(06:10):
queer families and Chosen Families, and we have other smaller
events around the city to just stay engaged with other
local LGBTQ nonprofits to fundraise to secure volunteers. We'll be
launching a book club and an art event in twenty
twenty six. We also help uplift smaller Pride organizations that

(06:32):
might be struggling, and then once a year we also
convene with other Pride organizations around the country. In February,
it's coming up in Milwaukee.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Why is that year round engagement in so many different areas.
Why is that important?

Speaker 3 (06:48):
Well, it's important because our community just really needs that
support all year long, not just in June. There's lots
of other local organizations that do direct services that we
actually prefer a lot of our constituents too. It's a
priority for us not to not only keep our community
engage throughout the year, but also we have a lot

(07:10):
of corporate partners and nonprofit partners that also need to
come together to figure out how it is that we
will engage around We're creating opportunities for them to build
their networks, to strengthen their resources, and really we need
to come together for their queer employees and the broader
queer community as well.

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Since you mentioned that, and you alluded to it earlier,
twenty twenty five was a really challenging year for so
many nonprofits and why see Pride like others serving the
LGBTQIA plus community, faced significant declines in corporate donation and sponsorship.
There were widespread attacks on DEI. How are you regrouping?
What does twenty twenty six look like? What's the strategy for.

Speaker 3 (07:52):
Twenty twenty six. We definitely will be doing more advocacy
and activism efforts. We'll be going out there the companies
to other CBOs and Ashley talk about why New York
City Pride is important almost LGBTQ one on one per
se and why some organizations and even some companies should
still participate in pride.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Do you feel like the wind has changed a little bit?
What's the temperature out there so far?

Speaker 3 (08:19):
Not at all. It's actually just gotten worse. I mean
they have heard in the last couple of days, and
that's unfortunate, you know. And that's why I feel like
New York City Pride is important because it feels like
this is the Stonewall uprising all over again in nineteen
sixty nine, which is why Pride needs to continue and

(08:40):
continue to thrive. Can you imagine if there were no
more in New York City Pride and the younger me.
The younger queer people who are still out there who
have never experienced New York City Pride before should experience
it's life changing when they experienced their first New York
City pride. So that's why we have to continue the

(09:01):
fight for equality, for equity, for visibility, for care, for protection.
Right now, more than ever, it feels like the country
has gone backwards, which is why New York City Pride
is so important to the New York City and the
whole entire world. Everyone's looking towards us.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
For answers, and so what do you foresee for twenty
twenty six?

Speaker 3 (09:24):
Then, as some prides around the country have already pulled
the plugs on their prides, sadly, we will not let
that happen to New York City. And I think that
this is going to work. We will be successful if
the community of New York City and the tri State
actually come behind us to support New York City Pride.

(09:45):
I think that if New York City of Pride is
to grow, is to remain, we will need to gain
the individual support of our neighbors, our friends, or allies,
and they can easily do so by going online at
n We see prideuct Org and make a donation. They
can also determine how their companies can participate in the

(10:06):
march by either being a sponsor or just being in
the march itself. There's also Pride fests that happened simultaneously
that that draws in three hundred thousand spectators. And also
we need volunteers. Like New York City Pride can't happen
without over one thousand volunteers, So we're trying to sign
up and register a thousand volunteers by June.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
This is a huge event where community really makes the difference.
What kind of work would volunteers be doing and what
When can they start putting their hands up to join in?

Speaker 3 (10:37):
Yeah, so they can actually register now, because we also
need volunteers year round as well throughout our smaller events
other than June. But for June, we need help with logistics.
We need help with organizing some of our supplies and
our materials during June. We need marshals along the routes
of the march. We definitely need assistance during press conferences

(11:02):
with some of our Grand marshals. Lots of assembling and
disassembling deliveries of equipments such as barricades, food, water, you know,
being that there are over a thousand volunteers, they also
need to be fed and hydrated us just because June

(11:23):
is such like a warm month.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
So you've worked in nonprofits for a long time, but
this is a series of colossal events. Can you talk
about what goes on behind the scenes to put everything together.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
Yeah, So as soon as Pride is over in June,
the next day we do it all over again. And
how we do that is basically trying to ensure that
one do we have the funding. It costs two point
seven million dollars to put this on every year, and
we don't get a penny of that from city or
state agencies. However, you know, we just recently did a

(12:00):
study with the Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Converse of
New York and found that through the study, almost one
hundred and sixty nine million dollars gets injected into the
New York City economy that week. We don't get a
penny of that. So that's why we start July first,
you know, the very next day after Pride is all

(12:20):
over again, just to make sure that we have the funding.
So we start renewing our sponsorship. We start planning and
how we can always improve and make everything better more efficiently.
We've been told as we're working with department agencies of
New York that we are their favorite because we have
it together, we're the cleanest, We're in and out on time.
So we do love the and appreciate the partnership with

(12:43):
our city.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
As we discussed before, people working in DEI and in
the LGBTQIA sectors, they have faced a lot of resistance
and headwinds in the last year or so. And you're
already working so hard. But do people seem galvanized motivated?
What is the mood?

Speaker 3 (13:05):
You know? This administration obviously just wants us to give
up and drop dead and turn over, but we won't
do that. I think that it has definitely energized folks.
As you may have seen with the fifty to fifty
one movement, there is definitely fire under us to hit

(13:26):
the streets, to call our senators, our representatives, to do
email campaigns, to sign petitions, to really get out there
and protest some more. And we will continue doing it.
And I think that is just what has been uplifting
in that For instance, just to give you an example,
when the DEI when the administration said, you know, corporations,

(13:49):
you don't have to support DEI initiatives anymore. That negatively
impacted New York City Pride this past year, where we
saw almost a dip of nearly eight hundred thousand dollars
in funding, which is unfortunate, And it was because of
the people of New York City that actually came to
our side to help make up some of that loss.

(14:09):
And I think that's going forward. Because we haven't been
diversifying our revenue as much as we should have. We've
been heavily relying on corporate support. We didn't see this
coming at all. So they see the people of the
City of New York who helped fill that funny gap.
We were able to continue on this year twenty twenty

(14:30):
six because of them.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
So Pride twenty twenty six, what do you foresee? What
are your hopes this year?

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Well, I mean it's going to be the fifty seventh year.
We're already working up towards the sixtieth anniversary, can you
believe it in a few years, So that's going to
be a huge celebration for sure. My hope is just
that the people of New York will still continue to
stand by this iconic march just because it's so incredible.

(14:57):
Can you imagine New York City without a New York
City March. It's more for the younger generation, you know,
and the allies. The spending power of the queer community
is huge. As I just mentioned, one hundred and sixty
nine million dollars gets injected into the economy during the
week of Pride alone. So I think the new mayor

(15:19):
coming in, we think that his administration will be a
great ally. We hope to strengthen partnerships with local NGOs
and CBOs as well, so that we can continue and
strengthen the advocacy efforts and the activism. And I just
hope that Pride will continue for many more years to come,

(15:40):
regardless of the headwinds that are ahead.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
Emlynd, congratulations on your new job as the executive director
of NYC Pride. You can find out more about the
organization at Nycpride dot org. Thank you for being on
to get connected.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Thank you so much. Happy holidays.

Speaker 1 (15:56):
This has been get connected with Nina del Rio on
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